Movie review: A straight-laced Tangled’

Tuesday

Nov 23, 2010 at 12:01 AMNov 23, 2010 at 11:17 PM

There’s nothing kinky in “Tangled.” Nor is there much snarl. It’s all straight and clean, just the way Disney likes it. But too often this follicle fairytale feels as synthetic as the computer-generated 3-D animation.

Al Alexander

There’s nothing kinky in “Tangled.” Nor is there much snarl. It’s all straight and clean, just the way Disney likes it. But too often this follicle fairytale feels as synthetic as the computer-generated 3-D animation.

That goes double for the Broadway-light score by Alan Menken and Glenn Slater, as well as the facile work by Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi in providing the voices for the titular title character and her prince charming.

Oh, wait, I forgot, it’s no longer called “Rapunzel.” The name was changed recently to protect the innocent – and the profits. You see, in Disney-think, little boys don’t want to spend Mom’s money on movies about girls, so the Mouse is trying to outsmart them by going with something more generic. Something less threatening like “Tangled.”

In the pantheon of subterfuges, this one ranks among the dumbest. Not because boys aren’t nearly as gullible as Disney thinks, but because the Mouse is too stupid to realize that its Rapunzel is so sexy that males of all ages will be throwing elbows to claim front-row seats.

I mean this girl is hot! And what guy wouldn’t want to cuddle up with a chick with blond locks 100 feet long? And not just any locks, mind you, but magical ones that have the healing powers of aloe vera and the age-defiance of Oil of Olay.

The hair, though, isn’t nearly as powerful as those blue saucers Rapunzel has for eyes. In 2-D, they’re luminous. In 3-D, they’re positively hypnotic. I melted in my seat. Then Moore had to go and ruin the effect by opening her mouth. It was like Fran Drescher all over again.

Wait, it gets worse. She sings. And the combination of her voice and those instantly forgettable Menken-Slater songs is almost as cruel as Mother Gothel, the vain witch who kidnapped Rapunzel when she was but a baby and raised her under lock and key in her castle tower.

For 17 years, Gothel has managed to keep her personal fountain of youth isolated from all other human contact, only allowing Rapunzel’s hair, which doubles as the old crone’s hoist to their penthouse, to leave the building. Then, just in time for Rapunzel’s 18th birthday – Levi’s Flynn Rider inadvertently enters their remote part of the forest and … well, you know the rest.

And therein lies the movie’s most glaring snag: it’s predictability. Almost from the beginning you know where it’s going, even if you haven’t read the Grimm Brothers tale on which it is based. That leaves it to the animators to pick up the slack, and unlike Dan Fogelman’s script, they rarely disappoint. The movie is flat-out beautiful, as it takes full advantage of 3-D technology to create illustrations that literally pop off the screen.

At times, the images look almost real, particularly Rapunzel’s long, radiant hair, which is so slinky that it moves like an asp, slithering gracefully to and fro. It’s so inviting that you’d do anything just to wrap yourself up in it.

The faces are equally expressive, full of longing and disappointment, looks that have become a staple of every Disney heroine longing to break free from her repressed, mundane existence.

It’s romantic and all, but Moore and Levi never inject their characters with the necessary passion to court your empathy. They’re likeable, all right, just not very interesting. Or at least not as interesting as some of the supporting roles, particularly Gothel, voiced exquisitely by Donna Murphy.

Where Levi and Moore elicit complacency, Murphy makes you want to sit up and take notice when she exercises those Tony-winning pipes. Now, she’s a singer! In fact, she almost makes the pedestrian songs sing.

But there’s not nearly enough of her character to satisfy the lingering questions concerning Gothel’s true feelings for Rapunzel. Is her charge just a commodity to keep her looking young, or has Rapunzel become like a real daughter to her? The film is never clear. And it should have been because their relationship is far more fascinating than the rote romance at the fore.

You also crave more of Maximilian, the stubborn white steed seeking revenge on the thieving Flynn. I’m willing to bet the kids will be enraptured by him more than the leading man.

The scene that everyone, young and old, will be talking about for years to come, though, is the one where hundreds of sky lanterns fill the screen – and the theater, courtesy of the clever 3-D tricks. It’s really neat. It’s the movie’s crowning achievement, full of body and bounce. But it’s not enough to erase all the flat spots that keep “Tangled” from being more of a mane attraction.